Berkeley B-Roll

Berkeley Rep has released some B-roll footage of YOU, NERO, my wife’s play, which is being given a terrific production there.

What’s wonderful about the Berkeley production, if I may speak as a critic, husband and fan at the same time (a combination that’s not often heard from and probably for good reason), is that it gets both the comedy and the gravity of the piece. That’s a tricky thing and requires landing the play, tonally, in exactly the right place, which means everybody has to be on board.

Amy’s plays, which are always (and no doubt to her advantage) remembered as being very funny, almost invariably deal with huge issues underneath their jocular surface — and usually resolve in a dark way.

Her first play, STILL WARM (loosed based on the life of Jessica Savitch), ended with its protagonist in hell, followed by an epiloque in which a plague broke out over America.

Her second full length play, THE PSYCHIC LIFE OF SAVAGES, ended in the aftermath of two suicides.

FREEDOMLAND, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, ended with a vision of a scientific-technological nightmare.

THE BEARD OF AVON, about the emergence of Shakespeare, ended on a note of painful but transcendent glory, but that was really only because Amy cut the last two scenes after the first production. In those, Shakespeare became a blackout alcoholic.

SAFE IN HELL, about Cotton Mather, ended with the devil more or less taking over America.

RESTORATION COMEDY was outside this pattern, however. Based on two Restoration plays, it’s a fairly joyful piece.